The international public standard ISO/IEC 1449610 “Information technology—Coding of audio-visual objects—Part 10: Advanced Video Coding”, fifth edition 2009-05-15, describes digital coding of video information, e.g. for digital video broadcast (DVB). Video data defines the content of the main video to be displayed. Auxiliary data defines any other data that may be displayed in combination with the main video data, such as graphical data or subtitles. The standard, and further related documents, also define control data for indicating parameters to a receiver for enabling the receiver to reproduce the main video data and overlaying the auxiliary data, and assembling a data transport stream including the video data, the auxiliary data and the control data for transmission. The AVC standard is an example; e.g. MPEG-2 video can be used, also for high definition, as described in ISO/IEC 13818-2 Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information: Video.
For enabling encoding and transferring 3D video data the above standards are being adapted. In particular, it has been proposed to define a system to indicate that 3D video information is transmitted via 2D video channels, formatted in a 2D video frame, e.g. in said side-by-side (SBS) or top-bottom (TB) arrangement. Hence, the 3D video data has at least a left view and a right view to be displayed for respective eyes of a viewer for generating a 3D effect, and the auxiliary data is arranged for display in an overlay area on the 3D video data. The 3D video data of the left view and the right view are formatted in a 2D frame for main video data according to the 2D transmission format in a main arrangement. For example, in an amendment for the above ISO standard, it has been proposed to extend the control data messages, called supplemental enhancement information (SEI) messages, by defining a new SEI message indicating spatial interleaving of the left and right views of video data in the 2D video frame for use as stereoscopic video delivery. The spatial interleaving may for example be said side-by-side (SBS) or top-bottom (TB) arrangement, or a checkerboard interleaving.